Ironically, your formula for deciding how much home and how much cash you need to own it and live, is the exact formula that most banks utilized in the past for determining whether to provide you with mortgage financing or not. I have oned many homes through many different markets. This is not the first time that real estate (residential) has declined. The last huge bubble was in 1989 and resulted in many banks closing and the creation of the RTC to consolidate them. While this wasn't created by the mortgage mess, but rather a tax reform it did reflect the easy money of the previous years. Home ownership is NOT a short term investment. But over time it can be one of your best long term ones.

kvetch, kvetch, kvetch. Anya, with the manifold advantages you've had in your upbringing, a burgeoning writing career and a Yale degree, what possibly do you have to say of relevance to real struggling people of the world? That you give yourself a mandate to preach about the plights of the have-nots, whilst having everything in motion to becoming a super-haver, is disingenuous at best. I don't suppose with your parents and contacts being who they are, that you are so guileless to think that you are providing anyone real help. I can't wait for your second book: "How I started off and ended up far better than you (and whined about it the whole way)".

My BF and I saved 50% of our gross income for 3 years to save for a house. We bought first house 4 months ago.

Right after college, I made my list of goals. #1 was owning a home.

Things we sacrificed to buy our first home.- We only own 1 car, compact and bought used- no engagement ring (it covered the closing cost)- No cable- We only turn the heat ON for a few hours during the winter (lots of flannel and blankets)

We got creative with saving, sacrificed a lot, except for food and health.

We did lots of research for 1 year. During closing, I discovered mortgage lenders make TONS of mistakes. I would have paid more during my closing if I did not point out the small mistakes. I got a 30 year fixed mortage.

theclaptrapper, clap your trap and get back to swabbing the decks. Anya is doling out sound advice. Just because she is smarter, richer, more popular, and dare I say hotter than you does not invalidate her sage wisdom. Now go eat some cake.

Good advice in this article, buy a house you can afford and will live in longer than 5 years. One pet peeve, the majority of the population doesn't live in some over priced city like NYC, LA, Miami, Chicago yet the media focuses most of their financial advice on these areas. I'd love to hear advice for those of us that live in areas with less than 700k residents. Midwest, Southwest, South, anywhere average people live. I grew up in Ohio and I'm relocated to Missouri for an entry level position. When I buy a home it will be because I want to customize it to fit my aesthetic and if I live there 10 years I'll get a good return on my investment. Homes are not a get rich scheme.

Smarter, richer, more popular and hotter... Hopefully this is written in inverse fashion and you actually saved the best for first. Anya is quite marketable, I will award that to her easily. Her valiant work on her pet cause however is steeped in self-agrandizement; this is borne out by the fact that it readily manefests itself as more of a vehicle for her self-promotion (towards getting richer, more popular and hotter.. no doubt), than a real movement to change the natural yet monstrous progression of imperialist capitalism. Seizing the opportunity to speak out (over top of more qualified, more valid and more *relevant* voices) on an issue that hardly affects her, provides (at least for me) an irony that ultimately degrades most of Anya's postulates; she represents the power structure that stands on top of the majority. That she embraces the vehicles of power so readily reveals what might be termed an unconscious underlying contempt for the people she seeks to represent (in the short-term). Decades from now, you will wonder how she keeps her ethno-social compass intact, as she heads up a newsroom that keeps the elite and upper mids intact. The truth is, she never had one. (I'm not a writer... so forgive the impricisions... I don't have an editor.. silly, poor, unpopular, frigid me!)

AK has arrived!!!! Not one but TWO creepy little shit eating reThug trolls who coulda crawled outa Jonah Goldberg's butt! Nice touch, clap and anon, throwing in the personal physical references that you wouldn't have with a mail blogger. Little jackasses, bray on.

since my chosen career path is investments (NOT real estate investing), I can say that this run up on the housing market was two sided - the people wanting the biggest house on the blog, and Wall Street who couldn't repackage and sell the loans fast enough. It's gonna get worse before it gets better, unfortunately.